Cloning is a crucial component of aeroponic gardening. Once you learn to clone successfully, you are effectively assured of future farm success.
When cloning a plant successfully, you are taking the plant’s strong genes and preserving them into the future for you to enjoy incredible returns as a producer from it.
An example in the case of chili, if you find a specific strain of chili you love and every growing season feels like it is producing really large amounts of chilis, you will want to clone the one plant so that it grows and takes over the whole garden.
While the benefits are significant, cloning does come with its own challenges. Most likely, the most common dilemma that may arise to a farmer is the cloning not rooting in the aeroponic cloner and if that happens, there can be contributing factors that you got wrong when cutting the plants and any abuses or mistakes when handling the cuttings.
And on very rare occasions, mistakes may be made when actually making the cutting medium, but this is not very probable.
Because plants need roots to uptake nutrients necessary for generating and developing, the reasons above can be problematic. In simple terms, a plant cannot generate or create yields if it does not have strong roots.
If you find your aero clones not rooting, you are in the right place. You can continue to read to find the almost certain reasons for clones failing to root with solutions to the problems mentioned.
What Prevents Rooting in Aeroponic Cloners?
Additionally, like we mentioned before, root tissue sometimes fails to strike in aeroponic cloners due to some form of error made while making the cutting or handling the cutting.
One reason this happens, which is less common, was when producing the rooting medium.
Let’s take a look at this.
Clones Not Rooting in Aeroponic Cloner Because of Mistakes Done During Cuttings
One of the most common mistakes that growers make when they are taking cuttings is that they take cuttings that are too small to spray.
The cutting you take should be of sufficient size that when you stick it into the growing medium, there is some ‘space’ between the last leaves and substrate.
Other Important things to know:
Using water with extreme ends of the pH scale can damage the rooting.
The rooting medium must be moist (6.0 pH), and you have to be careful not to oversaturate the cuttings because that can make a perfect environment for rotting.
You have to take care with the cuttings when you are taking them off the mother.
Some species (like cannabis, for example) have the rooting hormones just below the outermost layers of bark. If you take them off, clones will NEVER grow out roots.
Don’t put the cuttings close to alcohol or anything that is contaminated; it would also kill the rooting hormones.
The best condition is to store them in the refrigerator between taking the cuttings off the mother and placing the cuttings into the environmental growth medium.
Lastly: Having a cloner or small greenhouse will help to ensure that the humidity does not drop underneath 90% when you place the cuttings.
Aeroponic Cloning Issues Because of Mistakes During Maintenance
Even if you execute proper technique when making cuttings, your clones won’t root if you don’t protect them.
When it comes to planting:
- make sure the rooting medium is hydrated enough for the rooting process, and
- leave the cuttings alone for at least 10 days without adding more water.
When it’s time to mist the cuttings, be sure to concentrate on the underside of each leaf as opposed to the top (this is known to delay rooting in aeroponic clones).
Temperature range in your aeroponic cloner will be another area that you want to keep an eye on, as experts recommend 22oC, but you will be fine one degree higher or lower. Anything outside of this range will have an impact on rooting.
To be specific, the cuttings will not root if too low (temperature) and they will die if too high (temperature).
The effect of too much heat is also a part of the reason you should not cover your cloner in electric blankets.
Aeration is also critical to the rooting process, just like temperature. You should open your cloner at least once daily to allow fresh air inside.
This also gets rid of any drop hanging out in your aeroponic system. If the moisture feels excessive, draining excess moisture may be the best course of action.
Clones Not Rooting Because of Mistakes When Preparing the Rooting Medium
There are times that the environment you use to plant cuttings might not be ideal for rooting.
As discussed above, cloners, propagators, and greenhouses have great environments for root development by keeping humidity above 90%.
In addition, the medium you use must also provide for an environment that is conducive to rooting. Rockwool is a top pick among many growers, because it has incredible water retention properties.
This will ensure that your cuttings set in an environment that offers enough moisture for rooting.
How to Tell If Clones are Rooting
It’s essential to confirm whether your clones have rooted. If you’re able to determine that they haven’t rooted, you will know why and make the necessary changes in accordance with the previous sections of the post.
The two methods used to determine if a clone has rooted well are to tug on the cutting, and look for new growth.
Tugging
The process of tugging is a simple way to test if rooting is occurring with your cuttings. Simply pull upwards gently. If you pull upwards too hard, you may inadvertently pull the cuttings out of the media.
If you feel a slight grip, you are seeing rooting or the process of rooting.
Caution: Don’t perform this test too soon (less than 10 days after planting), because it may kill the clone outright.
Check for New Growth
If tugging seems too risky, you’re welcome to wait for new growth to come forth from your clones.
New growth will typically start to sprout, within about 10 to 14 days or so (*as long as your clones aren’t wilting).
While you wait for new growth, check-in on your clones, if they’re wilting it’s a sure sign that roots are not developing.
How to Quicken Rooting in Clones
There is nothing more annoying than waiting for a clone to root.
Gladly there are intelligent ways of speeding up this process.
These include:
- Make sure to take cuttings from a healthy mother plant. Use a sharp blade to cut the branch at a 45o angle. The 45o angle gives you a larger surface area for root growth. Refrain from using a dull knife and avoid crushing the stem.
- Once leaves are removed from the cutting except for the topmost leaves on the cutting. Leaving too many leaves will slow down the rooting process.
- Once your clone is trimmed, dip the clone in powder and rooting gels. Doing so gives the nutrients needed for root growth.
- Before burying your clones into your growing medium of choice, ensure that the medium is soaked. Once soaked, place the plants into your aeroponic cloner.
- Once they are placed into the cloner, place some powerful LED lights above your equipment. This will maintain temperatures and humidity levels in the ideal areas. If you spent the proper amount of money, you could buy dimmable bulbs so that incase you needed to save some money on electric bills.
- Finally, do not commit the maintenance mistakes mentioned earlier, and your clones should have roots by the 10th day.
Wrapping Up
As we addressed above, slight errors in the handling and upkeep of cuttings can delay aerial rooting with cloned seedlings.
This means you will need to stay observant of these activities or have a caretaker for your cuttings.
You will also want to provide your cutting with ideal growing conditions to support root growth.
Depending on your cuttings condition as well, you may introduce a rooting gel, organic fertilizer, or both to stimulate root growth.
If you use a chemical fertilizer, you are counter to your cutting being maintained through aeroponics.
Be patient as well. Moving your cuttings to check on root formation will only extend the rooting time, or sometimes kill your cutting altogether.